HNN: Construction lobbying firm and rail proponent Pacific Resource Partnership, unveiled a website today called Beniceben.com. It comes in reaction to this comment from mayoral candidate, Ben Cayetano, about Senator Dan Inouye's backing of rail – during that debate.

"Senator Inouye is up at the 30,000 foot level - dealing with national and international affairs. The Senator should take time and go around to McDonald's and talk to the retirees who go there to eat breakfast because it's cheap. You know he's out of touch, as far as I am concerned."

PRP calls the comment "mean-spirited" and is petitioning names - urging Cayetano to be more respectful. Executive Director John White says "To hear a fellow democrat, Ben Cayetano, insult him in the way he did, is very disappointing and quite frankly, unbecoming of a person who wants to be leader of the city."

Cayetano calls the site a desperate, amateurish move by rail advocates because they're "scared stiff" they'll lose the election. He says, "What's there to apologize about? This is a campaign. I said some things, and I don't think what I said should be taken by anyone who is as experienced as the Senator, as offensive."

Cayetano kicked the argument even further - claiming PRP hired a mainland company to do a telephone "push poll". That's a technique used to influence a respondent's view by giving negative information under the façade of conducting a poll.

"We know that they have been behind an attempt to smear us. Not only me, but (Honolulu City Councilman) Tom Berg and everyone else who questions the viability of the rail project," Cayetano explains.

MN: Hirono and her colleagues seem to forget that they have been chipping away at our Social Security funds since 1965. There are absolutely no funds left. Social Security's unfunded liabilities are $15.6 trillion and Medicare's unfunded liabilities are a whopping $82.3 trillion.

Furthermore, she supported the payroll tax holiday, where lawmakers have forced us taxpayers to rob our own imaginary Social Security funds to the tune of $143 billion instead of actually lowering personal income taxes.

Quite the scam - a scam Bernie Madoff would be proud of….

Either Hirono is feeling guilty or she's totally inept. Now she's a candidate for the U.S. Senate?

AP: Steve Shaw, a political scientist at Northwest Nazarene University and co-author of "The Presidents and Their Faith," compares this election to the 1960 campaign of John F. Kennedy, who confronted religious bias to become the first Roman Catholic president. Kennedy's election marked a move for Catholics more firmly into the American mainstream, a potential shift for Mormons as well in 2012.

However, Laura Vega, spokes­woman for the Marshals Service for the Central District of California, said the agency "put a detainer on him, had spoken on the phone to police, but he still was released. We don't know why he was released."

Once the marshals learned Espo­sito was traveling to and from Thailand, they contacted the State Department, had him arrested when he went into the embassy and extradited him from there.

The Chiangrai Times reported that in March, Thai police detained Sargent, who entered Thailand in October with a tourist visa before changing to a retirement visa.

HNN: A nineteen year veteran of the Honolulu Police Department was indicted on Wednesday for lying to the F.B.I. and disclosing the identity of an H.P.D. undercover officer.

Officer Richard Wayne Raquino is charged with revealing the identity of an undercover officer and disclosing the description of an undercover police vehicle last June. The indictment also accuses Raquino of telling the same individual about how to identify and elude police surveillance during active investigations.

Lawsuit: Fire captain's statements About Woman’s Death led to retaliation

SA: A 23-year veteran fire captain is alleging retaliation for speaking out in December that the death of a woman whom he carried out of a burning house could have been prevented had several critical errors not been made by the Hono­lulu Fire Department.

Attorney Venetia Carpenter-Asui filed a lawsuit Friday on behalf of Capt. George K. Ka­opu­iki against HFD and Hono­lulu Fire Chief Kenneth Silva in which he alleges a violation of his free-speech rights and violation of the Hawaii Whistleblowers' Protection Act.

The complaint, filed in Circuit Court, says Ka­opu­iki verbally reported that fire personnel made numerous serious mistakes that could have caused the death of the woman from a fire at her single-family home.

The mistakes include not hooking up to a fire hydrant to ensure an ample water supply, and not starting a rescue search sooner because a sufficient water supply had not been secured early on, Ka­opu­iki told five fire captains and an acting battalion chief during a December meeting….

Fire personnel did not call Emergency Medical Services for 19 minutes after Ka­opu­iki carried the woman out of the fire, alive and breathing, he said at the meeting. He blamed the department's lack of training for the errors.

The suit alleges Ka­opu­iki was retaliated against when he was subjected to an investigation Jan. 16 for false allegations of mistreating a firefighter at the Kakaako station, which he was told was at the direction of Silva. That firefighter told Ka­opu­iki he never made a complaint against him

HR: Sources told Hawaii Reporter that the sisters, Khemma Pannga Xoumanivong, 63, and Bounkouam Khamphilavanh, 47, are receiving welfare benefits administered through the state Department of Human Services. Neighbors at the housing complex said one of the sisters formerly drove a BMW automobile and more recently has been parking a 2012 Mercedes Benz at her unit.

Law enforcement also found and opened a portable safe inside one of the units, Hawaii Reporter learned.

Similar raids were conducted Monday and Tuesday at retail businesses in Chinatown and the Thai House restaurant in Kaimuki.

AP: Attorney General Chris Koster has sued a Utah-based travel agency to recover about $360,000 for a southwestern Missouri high school band.

Koster's office says Present America Tours LLC accepted the money from the Willard High School band for a planned summer trip to Hawaii. But the school canceled the trip after the company stopped returning phone calls and emails.

A phone number for the company — with a Hawaii area code — was disconnected Friday.

1993—In Baehr v. Lewin, the Hawaii Supreme Court rules that traditional marriage is presumptively unconstitutional and orders the state to demonstrate a “compelling state interest” for denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In 1998, the people of Hawaii respond by amending the state constitution to confirm that the legislature has the power to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples, and the legislature amends the constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman.

MN: The state Public Utilities Commission gave final approval for Maui Electric Co. to raise rates by 1.5 percent, less than the 2.7 percent increase the PUC had previously authorized MECO to collect on an interim basis.

The 1.5 percent increase approved Wednesday works out to $4.7 million in additional revenue for MECO. The rate hike will help pay for more than $122 million in capital improvements, including an upgrade of power plant control systems at the Maalaea Generating Station, construction of new substations and the expansion of existing ones, MECO said in a news release issued Friday.

Question: The city is constantly encouraging us to conserve energy. In response, more people have been installing photovoltaic systems as part of Hawaiian Electric Co.'s Net Energy Metering program. After a PV system is installed, it has to be approved by a city electrical inspector before the homeowner can take advantage of the NEM program. Unfortunately, an inspector on the Windward side has been very slow in approving PV systems, saying it is a low priority for him. Some installed last year have still not been approved. Why does the city encourage homeowners to install PV systems while an inspector delays approving them?

Question: I had solar panels put on my roof back in December. I have been waiting more than four months to get the new net metering panel from HECO, but the city has not completed the electrical inspection, which needs to be done before they can put in the new meter. Who can I call to speed this up? I live in Kailua.

There's been a nearly fivefold increase in the number of PV permits issued between 2009 and 2011: 631 in fiscal year 2009 compared with 3,102 in fiscal year 2011.

But while the number of permits has risen significantly, the number of electrical inspectors has not because of budget constraints (Rail) Challacombe said….

One option is amending the electrical code to allow "contractor certification," which would eliminate the need for an inspector to visit a home.

"We expect to go to the City Council with a new electrical code later this month," Challacombe said. "The city appreciates the overwhelming response by residents to calls for energy conservation."

PBN: The recent closure of cabinetry firms Darcey Builders Inc. and Hawaii Woodcrafts Inc. has raised new concerns about how subcontractors are faring after years of a downturn in the construction industry.

State labor analysts say the most recent data show the number of subcontractors declined in 2010 and is likely to show a decline in 2011 once final data are available, but the worst may be over.

“Preliminary data in 2011 show that it is still declining, but it’s a smaller decline,” Francisco Corpuz, state Department of Labor & Industrial Relations research and statistics officer, told PBN. “So we are cautiously optimistic that it will rebound as government projects are expected to expand.”

CB: According to The Civil Beat Poll survey of 1,162 registered voters1, 36 percent of respondents said the level of benefits is just right. Twenty-seven percent of voters said Hawaiians get "too many" benefits and 23 percent said "not enough." The margin of error was 2.9 percent.

HNN: An attempted murder suspect trying to make a getaway tries to break into a Kalihi apartment but the man on the other side of the door wasn't having it and it turned into a wild scene.

While getting away one suspect made it to an apartment on Robello Lane in Kalihi and picked the wrong door. Michael Napeahi, 35, was allegedly trying to kick down the door using a rock and his foot. He was getting close to breaking through when the owner inside, known as BG opened the door armed with his shotgun. He says Napeahi charged in anyway and threatened to kill BG and his girlfriend yet he didn't shoot. Instead they got into an intense fist fight. Blood can be seen splattered on the door, the floor and the American flag hanging on the wall.

"I think it's a classic case of an everyday citizen defending himself and his family. I think he used great constraint that he didn't fire the firearm," said Harvey Gerwig, Lessons In Firearms Education (LIFE) and Hawaii Rifle Association President.